Currency - India- 5 Rupees- Year 2009

Item code: 68

Year	2009
Obverse	National Emblem of India; Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948); Seal of the Reserve Bank of India.
Reverse	Farmer ploughing with a tractor while sun is rising
Watermark	Mahatma Gandhi
Signature	D. Subbarao (from 5 September 2008 to 4 September 2013)

Obverse description:                            

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi   

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was a leader of nationalism in British-ruled India.

Early life

Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in Porbandar, Gujarat, India. Several members of his family worked for the government of the state. When Gandhi was 18 years old, he went to England to study law. After he became a lawyer, he went to the British colony of South Africa where he experienced laws that said people with dark skin had worse rights than people with light skin. He decided then to become a political activist, so he could help change these unfair laws. He created a powerful, non-violent movement. During Gandhi's life, India was a colony of the United Kingdom, but wanted independence.

As an activist

In 1930, Gandhi led the Salt March.

When he returned to India, he helped cause India's independence from British rule, inspiring other colonial people to work for their own independence, break up the British Empire, and replace it with the Commonwealth.

People of many different religions and ethnic groups lived in British India. Many people thought that the country should break into separate countries so that different groups could have their own countries. In particular, many people thought that Hindus and Muslims should have separate countries. Gandhi was a Hindu, but he liked ideas from many religions including Islam, Judaism and Christianity, and he thought that people of all religions should have the same rights, and could live together peacefully in the same country.

In 1938, Gandhi resigned from Congress. He said that he was no longer able to work through Congress to unite the divisions in caste and religion. He also felt that he had little to offer to the political process.

In 1947, British Indian Empire became independent, and broke into two different countries, India and Pakistan. Gandhi wanted independence, but did not want to split into two different countries. Instead of celebrating on Independence Day, he was crying over the division of India.

Gandhi's principle of satyagraha, often translated as "way of truth" or "pursuit of truth", has inspired other democratic and anti-racist activists like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela. Gandhi often said that his values were simple, based upon traditional Hindu beliefs: truth (satya), and non-violence (ahimsa).

Mahatma Gandhi on a 1969 postage stamp of the Soviet Union

Death

On January 30, 1948, Gandhi was assassinated by an extremist Hindu activist , Nathuram Godse. He shot him because he felt that Gandhi was too lenient towards Muslims. As a punishment for this he was hanged. 

Reverse description  

Agriculture in India

Indian agriculture includes a mix of traditional to modern farming techniques. In some parts of India, traditional use of cattle to plough remains in use. Traditional farms have some of the lowest per capita productivities and farmer incomes.

The history of Agriculture in India dates back to Indus Valley Civilization Era and even before that in some parts of Southern India. Today, India ranks second worldwide in farm output. Agriculture and allied sectors like forestry and fisheries accounted for 13.7% of the GDP (gross domestic product) in 2013, about 50% of the workforce. The economic contribution of agriculture to India's GDP is steadily declining with the country's broad-based economic growth. Still, agriculture is demographically the broadest economic sector and plays a significant role in the overall socio-economic fabric of India.

India exported $39 billion worth of agricultural products in 2013, making it the seventh largest agricultural exporter worldwide and the sixth largest net exporter. Most of its agriculture exports serve developing and least developed nations. Indian agricultural/horticultural and processed foods are exported to more than 100 countries, primarily in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, SAARC countries, the EU and the United States.

Organic agriculture

Organic agriculture has fed India for centuries and it is again a growing sector in India. Organic production offers clean and green production methods without the use of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides and it achieves a premium price in the market place. India has 650,000 organic producers, which is more than any other country. India also has 4 million hectares of land certified as organic wild culture, which is third in the world (after Finland and Zambia).

Since 2002, India has become the world's largest manufacturer of tractors with 29% of world's output in 2013; it is also the world's largest tractor market. Above a tractor in use in north India.

Irrigation

Indian irrigation infrastructure includes a network of major and minor canals from rivers, groundwater well-based systems, tanks, and other rainwater harvesting projects for agricultural activities. Of these, the groundwater system is the largest. Of the 160 million hectares of cultivated land in India, about 39 million hectare can be irrigated by groundwater wells and an additional 22 million hectares by irrigation canals. In 2010, only about 35% of agricultural land in India was reliably irrigated. About 2/3rd cultivated land in India is dependent on monsoons. The improvements in irrigation infrastructure in the last 50 years have helped India improve food security, reduce dependence on monsoons, improve agricultural productivity and create rural job opportunities. Dams used for irrigation projects have helped provide drinking water to a growing rural population, control flood and prevent drought-related damage to agriculture.

Return to Indian Bank Note page